Emu Sings in Dada Night


So, I haven't been very good about writing lately. That's because I've been working on a song, and it's one of those little tunes that captivated me, but I had only a couple of lines. This song was just: "Magic rings, magic things, emu sings in dada night." Now where was that coming up from? The Dada artist, Hans Arp, wrote, "Dada is beautiful like the night, who cradles the young day in her arms."

The Dada Movement (or more accurately, anti movement), was born in Zurich, rising from the mindless slaughter that was World War One. Something had to change, and it had to be at the basic architecture of the society. All cultural attitudes had to be challenged, because they were leading to destruction.

The shape of the structures in Europe that were self-destructing was the pyramid shape, in which there was a top down authority exerting organizational power over everything below it. So long as this was in place, and unconscious in the way that water is unconscious to fish, history would repeat itself.

The basic problem in changing this structure is obvious. There is a scene between Christ and Pilate in "The Last Temptation of Christ" in which Herod says something to the effect of, "It doesn't matter how you want to change things, we don't want them changed."

Power does not voluntarily submit to evolutionary pressures, as has been evidenced with global warming. Entrenched power will even try to discredit evolution itself, and try to get people to believe horse shit to prove their devotion to higher authority. These are the obedient people, who need never fear finding themselves at a salon in Zurich, with a paper knife pointing out the word, with seemingly random aim, "Dada." The dictionary definition was a child's hobby horse. But it became the name of a movement which denied the concept of a movement, and died when it began to have form imposed on it from the outside.

From the outside it looked like sheer nonsense but from the inside it had a purpose, which was to break patterns and accelerate an evolutionary process, which involved moving something new into consciousness, which was held unconscious by the existing social structure. This new energy is the young day, and Dada was the night from which it would be born.

This was related to Surrealism, and existentialism. The existing structure was that there is already a pattern for who a person should be, and that deviations from this pattern create deformity and thus undesirability. To conform to the pattern the person would be required, first of all, to desire the reward promised by conformance to the pattern, or fear the punishment for not conforming.

In most cases this is simply not looked at, and the value of conforming to the essentialism goes unquestioned. But it is the role of the artist in society to create an external vantage point from which the culture can be viewed with some objectivity. The artists change things by moving the point of reference. For example, this very process of being attracted to what the culture rewards and repulsed by what it rejects was used as the very definition of pornography by James Joyce. It cannot produce real art.

Existentialism moved the point of reference from conforming to an external system. It turned it on its head from essence precedes existence, to "Existence precedes essence." So the person suddenly realizes that there is an alternative to conforming to someone else's expectations, and is freed to create his or her own essence. This is not something new, but something continually forgotten and rediscovered.

I just wrote what came up from the darkness and was fun to sing. I didn't connect it to anything more than that until I began writing this blog today. I had read about dadaism when I was young and even took the trouble to read the manifesto and look at the art. But I had forgotten about it. I don't recall ever knowing much about emus, yet the emu is the perfect character to sing in the dada night.

A porpoise, even a flamingo, would not do. Maybe a swallow ...


Dada Night (©2008 Dan Lee)


Magic rings, magic things, and the emu sings in da dada night,

join hands, join rings, out here where the emu sings.

Porpoises can’t take your place; I miss your face;

Wicked hat on my head I’m dancing with the grateful dead.

Wicked shoes on my feet, I’m dancing to ...

da dada dada dada dada beat.


Golden band, ivory hand, shadow on the shadow man,

blue eyes sign for blue design and emu sings his emu rhyme.

Porpoises can’t take your place; I miss your face.

Wicked hat on my head I’m dancing with the grateful dead.

Wicked shoes on my feet I’m dancing to ...

da dada dada dada dada beat.


emu dancing in my dreams says silly is as silly seems,

Sometimes emu sings a song, though emu gets the words all wrong.

Flamingos can’t take your place; I grok emu face.

Wicked hat on my head I’m dancing with the grateful dead

Wicked shoes on my feet I’m dancing to ...

da dada dada dada dada beat.


Magic rings, magic things, emu sings in dada night,

join hands, join rings, out here where the emu sings.

Porpoises can never take your place.

Every night I miss your face ....

Every night I miss your face ...




Posted: Wed - December 10, 2008 at 02:25 PM